Will Smith in High-Tops Playing an NES

Hello, Kotaku, and welcome to the mid-week evening open thread! Hope your wednesdays went splendidly. It was a beautiful day in San Francisco. Here, from all around the web, are things for you to check out and maybe talk about. TV sports announcer falls off a stool – It’s hard to be cool. This kid…

Why the Hell is Justin Bieber Giving a Shout-Out to 2K Sports?

From the Beeb’s official Twitter: “shoutout to @Ronnie2K – everyone follow him. good people. thanks for the good time. the eye will heal. ha.” That’s a name-check from Bieber—at 17 million followers, the second-most in all of Twitter—of 2K Sports’ Ronnie Singh, the label’s digital marketing manager. It immediately followed a tweet from Singh that…

Here’s All of Today’s Nintendo News in One Place

Mario’s corporate owners dropped a bunch of news today via their two Nintendo Direct broadcasts and Kotaku was all over it. Whether it’s details about a new, more demonic Brain Age or the longed-for NorthAm release of a great Wii RPG, the links below have the knowledge you seek: • Nintendo Teases 3DS Owners With…

Mass Effect Publisher Wants You to Make the UK Government ‘Fess Up That Aliens Exist

In the far future of Mass Effect, the existence of alien life is a given, with Turian, Hanar and Asari intermingling with humans for decades. EA thinks that there’s Life Out There and it also thinks that the British government is covering up knowledge of the little grey men who’ve visited our little mudball. Or…

This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site.

This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site.

This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site.

More New Vita Content, Starhawk and SSX Demos New This Week on the PlayStation Store

The PS Vita rollout continues with another stacked week of new digital content at the PlayStation store. Vita owners get access to all manner of stuff, from a few free augmented reality games to apps for Netflix, Flickr and Twitter, demos for a few more titles, and several new digital-only games including Plants vs. Zombies,…

Bending the Rules as an Art Form

A man who applies a particular mental skill to play Blackjack, counting cards, will eventually find security standing behind him, strongly suggesting he vacate the premises, when someone working for the casino figures out what he is doing. That man has not brought any external items to the table. He has not smuggled certain cards…

In Syndicate‘s Corrupt Corporate Future, Roving Bands of Game Critics Fight a War of Opinion

It’s not like the original Syndicate. We’ve accepted that. Moved beyond it. This is not Bullfrog’s beloved tactical shooting game from 1993. This is something altogether different, and not every game reviewer likes it. The future changes with each passing moment, ladies and gentlemen, so the future Bullfrog painted in the original Syndicate could easily…

Vita Values

This Wednesday edition of Kotaku’s The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can’t wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon. Software • For the new PS Vita, Amazon and Best Buy offer “Buy 2 Games, Get a 3rd Free” sales. Example combo: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Lumines:…

“It’s a Pac-Man Sun!”

Won’t You Come, Wash Away The Rain | A partial solar eclipse described by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory as a “Pac-Man Sun” (Photo Credit: NASA/SDO via Space.com.) Pouring Like an Avalanche Down SSX’s First Mountain The SSX demo landed yesterday, with the full title arriving, at last, on Tuesday, rebooting EA Sports’ much-loved snowboarding series.…

Pouring Like an Avalanche Down SSX’s First Mountain

The SSX demo landed yesterday, with the full title arriving, at last, on Tuesday, rebooting EA Sports’ much-loved snowboarding series. The last SSX release was the Wii-only Blur in 2007; before that, SSX on Tour in 2005. It’s long enough that even some old hats may feel like newcomers in the seven-year layoff this game…

Huge FIFA Roster Update Kicks Off Tomorrow

News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: • Managing the player population for more than 30 professional leagues means that when FIFA drops a post-release roster update, it’s usually a whopper. That will arrive tomorrow, per Romily Broad, the game’s community manager. The title update will address the changes that took…

WWE Wrestlefest iPhone and iPad screens

From Tebow Time to the “Tecmo Bowl MMO”

Whatever you think of him, Tim Tebow has made a contribution—if indirect—to video games development. Last fall, as the quarterback was leading the Denver Broncos to an improbable six-game winning streak, David Murray got an idea to create a “Tecmo Tebow” image—Tebow, as an 8-bit Tecmo Super Bowl player, kneeling in the end zone. The…

Taco Bell Blames Vita Contest Debacle on ‘Technical Issues,’ Enrages Misled Winners

More than a week after informing PlayStation Vita contest winners that their entries were invalid, fast food corporation Taco Bell has told them that it messed up, blaming “technical issues” for the confusion. The misled contestants, who were told they won PlayStation Vitas on or around January 30, will all enter a “separate drawing” to…

Horror Game Amnesia Scores A Terrifying Sequel

Gaming site Joystiq reports that it will be called Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. It will feature a wealthy industrialist who is haunted by dreams and disaster following an unfortunate trip to Mexico. [Joystiq]

Introducing ZiGGURAT.

[Editor’s Note: Every month, we pay Tim Rogers to share his unique view of video games. But Tim has gone and made a video game. For free, we’re letting him introduce his new game as only Tim can. He’ll be back later this month with stuff we actually pay him to write. Take it away,…

American Game Developer on Death Row in Iran Receives Family Visit

The fate of American game developer Amir Hekmati, currently on death row in Iran, remains in question weeks after the original deadline for appeal has passed. As we’ve previously reported, Hekmati was arrested in Iran late last summer under allegations of being a CIA spy. In December he issued a public “confession,” the validity and…